A liberal conservative political scientist provoked an uproar by describing the Socialist Party as an integral part of PM Orbán’s régime. But another analyst soon followed in his footsteps.

In an interview with 168 Óra, Richárd Szentpéteri Nagy says the MSZP is playing the role assigned to it by Fidesz, which needs a left-wing and a right-wing opposition, neither of which are able to jeopardise its rule. He considers party chairman Gyula Molnár an appeaser who is good at striking compromises but bad as a resolute leader. The political scientist goes so far as to accuse an unspecified number of Socialist politicians of being blackmailed by Fidesz. He says the Prime Minister ‘has several men inside the MSZP’. At the same time, Szentpéteri Nagy dismisses comparisons with Putin’s regime, arguing that in Russia an electoral defeat of the ruling forces is unimaginable, while in Hungary it is still possible.

In a lengthy article investigating the issue on Index, Szabolcs Dull writes that Fidesz wants the MSZP to stay alive. His sources tell him that there is no proper connivance between Socialist officials and the governing forces, but individual politicians do strike private deals with their counterparts on the government side. The Socialist side has no strategy to keep Fidesz in power, but Fidesz does badly need the Socialist party in its present shape ‘as rubble’, Dull claims. The reason is, he muses, that Fidesz wants a divided opposition in order to avoid the fate of the former Polish governing party, the Civic Platform which was beaten by a more radical right-wing force, namely the incumbent PiS party which remained the only sizeable opposition force after the left had practically disappeared from the scene.